I know this firsthand because I’ve recently retired from 26 years at the OPP, where I held several senior positions.

The Canadian public’s expectation for law and order is well documented.

So too is the concern, through virtually every sector of our society, that the economy is in trouble, both nationally and around the globe. Budgets have to be tightened or reduced. We are all being told we’ll have to make do with less.

That’s a particular tough one for police and regulatory forces to swallow. Crimes are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Unrest is brewing in many levels of the population.

If the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, the possibility of increased civil strife is likely to increase.

Those tasked with delivering effective law-enforcement services must ensure that their organizations are adequately engineered to meet the challenges ahead.

But how can they do this with reduced or stagnant resources?

One answer is to change. Most of us resist change. But it’s an essential part of growth and development.

John F. Kennedy once said: “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

How can police and regulatory forces change? They need to consider:

• significant organizational changes
• changes in how they do business
• adopting a “value for money” management approach
• increased transparency and accountability to the communities they serve
• implementing intelligence-led policing and risk-based regulating models.

One reason I joined FFP was its excellent LEAP practice. It is well positioned to assist any organization contemplating significant changes.

LEAP is comprised of experienced retired senior police leaders and business professionals. They’re dedicated to assisting law enforcement and regulatory agencies engaged in reviewing and re-tooling their organizations to ensure:

• effective, accountable and transparent services to the communities they serve.

Police and regulatory organizations are not immune to the impact of changing environments.

Given that the public expectation of safe and secure communities is unlikely to decline, police and regulators will have to adjust to maintain the public’s trust and meet their expectations.

Such an undertaking can be intimidating. But there are agencies, such as our LEAP Practice, there to help.

One thing that especially impressed me was the ease at which both firms collaborated. I find this to be the norm rather than the exception in the world of investigative and forensic accounting.

If there’s a job to do, and it requires a team composed of professionals who normally compete against each other, all differences are put aside to ensure the best possible outcome for the client.

Whether it’s an industry, a practice area, the location of the file, or a combination of different areas of expertise required in a specific circumstance, we are a profession that needs to act professionally when the circumstances so dictate.

This is an aspect of our business I find positive and attractive.

It’s also humbling at times.

Most, if not all of us, have our areas of expertise. Few of us, if any, have all areas covered. And, whether we like to admit it or not, we have competitors who better excel than us in some aspects of the profession.

One of my New Year’s resolutions, which I hope others in my firm and elsewhere might consider, is to accept this reality.

A firm doesn’t always have all the required expertise for a file. And, like other professions, we need to occasionally refer work simply because someone else is better suited, not just because we have a conflict.

Or, we need to put a multi-firmed team together to match the required skills to an assignment.

Can we do this and make it work? At FFP I know we will give it a try. I wonder what others in the profession have to say about this.

Do you add to your staff before the work comes in? There are many advantages to doing so. Your new hire(s) will likely be more up-to-speed when the new files begin and more familiar with your firms’ other professionals and the culture.

Or do you take a more conservative approach and wait until the work has been secured? That can be a risk, however, as the hiring process can eat up valuable time and resources.

There’s likely no correct answer. We all have to decide what’s best for our own circumstances.

But there’s one hiring scenario that, to me, is much easier to figure out. That’s when an exceptional professional becomes available. Someone you would greatly regret losing to a competitor.

When someone of that quality can be added to your staff I believe you need to bring him or her on board. If the workload doesn’t justify it at the time, I feel certain it won’t be long before your investment is returned to your firm.

Exceptional people attract clients and they will more than earn their keep down the road.

We recently had just such a scenario present itself. Don Perron, whom I’ve known and respected for more than a decade, retired from the OPP, where he held many senior positions.

We’d worked together and I always said to him, if you ever retire, call me first. Which he did.

Don has joined us as a senior investigator and will play a major role in our firm in the years ahead. We didn’t conduct a cost-benefit analysis of him joining FFP. When you can draft an all-star player you just do it. The team will be better and the better teams tend to be winners.

While I consider the new provisions to be a significant step in the right direction, I’m concerned our legislators might have missed the mark.

The new act, “Standing Up For Victims of White Collar Crime,” makes three notable changes to Section 380 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Firstly, it calls for a minimum mandatory sentence of two years imprisonment for frauds where the total amount defrauded exceeds $1 million.

Secondly, judges can now take into consideration several circumstances with respect to sentencing. These include, but are not limited to:

• the complexity and duration of the fraud;
• the personal impact on the victims, taking into account their age, health and financial stability;
• whether or not records were destroyed by the fraudster.

Thirdly, the act allows a judge to consider imposing a restitution order, with a view to financially reinstating the victims.

These are positive changes. However, it’s unclear as to whether the mandatory increase in sentencing will have the desired deterrent effect.

I suspect it won’t. A two-year sentence often results in far less actual time behind bars under our lenient system in which prisoners can be released after serving only a third of their sentence.

I doubt most fraudsters will even think about the possible punishment, when it’s that low a number of years and when there’s a chance to defraud a million dollars or more.

Another question to ponder is whether two years in jail is enough for victims to feel fully redeemed?  Again, I suspect not.  The victims of a fraud in excess of $1 million are often left penniless, losing the retirement nest eggs they had worked so diligently to obtain. The psychological damage can be devastating. Many victims suffer health problems from the stress and pain.

It’s good that victims will be given the opportunity to tell the courts the impact the crime has had on them. I can only hope judges take what they say into account when imposing the actual length of the sentences. A two-year term, after all, is just a minimum.

As for restitution, I believe the aforementioned changes will result in an increased frequency of filing orders.  The thought process is well intended, but reality would suggest the likelihood of recovering assets and cash as a result of the issuance of these orders is negligible.

Most fraudsters have either spent the proceeds of their work on ill-advised luxuries, or have gone to great lengths to conceal the illicit funds. Either way, restitution orders have historically been of limited value, largely because the courts cannot find the money.

In my opinion, the victims would be better advised to avail themselves of the civil remedies, which have been significantly more successful in the recovery of assets, traced primarily through the use of forensic investigative services.

In no way do I want to diminish the efforts of the federal government in passing Bill C-21.  In fact, I applaud it for its efforts. Every step in the right direction in terms of fixing our justice system is admirable, particularly when it comes to white-collar crime, still viewed by many in the justice system as “not worth the time.”  I doubt many victims of fraud feel that way.

I believe the new provisions haven’t gone far enough, particularly when it comes to inflicting as much pain as possible on the fraudsters – by sending them away for longer periods and by doing everything possible to seize whatever assets they might still have.

So how did it come to this?

An expert services business is only as good as its assets – in this case “human capital.” LECG’s stable of professionals included many of the world’s leading experts. To keep experts motivated they must be told, and also sense, that they are valued. More importantly, they have to be fairly compensated. They also need to feel confident that the business is being successfully managed, and that the company has a clear and impressive corporate plan in place.

If a company doesn’t provide these basic needs, it risks losing some, or many, of its experts. Experts today are far more mobile that they were a few decades ago, and competitive firms and companies are more aggressive in recruiting experts from competitors.

LECG faced a few major issues. Probably the biggest one was the expert’s compensation model. The model for “at risk” experts provided for an average of 72% of the expert’s fees to be paid to the expert. In addition, experts could receive “finder’s fees” consisting of a much lower percentage of LECG professional staff’s fees earned on the expert’s engagements. LECG’s share of revenue was thus primarily derived from the experts’ use of LECG professional staff.

This model works if a business is expanding. But if it’s contracting, an expert is personally motivated to hold onto chargeable hours at the expense of hours that would otherwise be worked by LECG professional staff, thus maximizing the expert’s income at the expense of LECG’s profitability.

LECG was also impacted by David Teece, a former LECG Chairman, setting up a competing expert services firm, Berkley Research Group, which attracted some of LECG’s consulting practices.

So what have we learned from the process? What are some key success factors for an expert services business? That’s for the next blog.

They piled into the Toronto Convention Centre, filling the lower floor of the south building virtually to capacity, and sat restlessly awaiting the commencement of the service. When the precession entered the hall, a hush came over the 12,000 to 14,000 attendees, as though someone had magically thrown a switch of silence. Such is the measure of respect and admiration due a man who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

I would venture to say that 70% or more of those in attendance had never met Sgt. Russell, which is the truest of testimonies to his bravery and willingness to put his life on the line for those he was sworn to protect. I had never met him, but that did not matter in the least.

The entire service was filled with emotion, and in proud fashion 10,000 rough and ready police officers, most of whom have experienced the most wretched of life’s events first hand, cleared their throats, blew their noses, and wept openly.

This is a brotherhood, a fraternity that is difficult for anyone outside is rigid borders to comprehend, but it lives on in perpetuity during the most tragic of events.

“Officer down” is undoubtedly the most feared call from dispatch. A fallen officer, calling out to his or her brothers for help … and how those brothers do respond. It doesn’t matter whether you know the officer in trouble, or whether you work for a different police service or in a different division … all come running, often placing their own lives at peril to assist in any way they can.

Our nation mourns a fallen officer today, but it is the brotherhood that remains at Sgt. Russell’s family’s side, for all time. This was painfully and wonderfully evident today. For those who have never experienced a regimental police funeral, it is truly a wonderment.

I am proud to be a part of that brotherhood, and although I retired from active RCMP service 15 years ago, I remain a part of the fraternity. I always will.

From my perspective, may the brotherhood remain strong and united in its cause, and to the Russell family, Froese Forensic Partners wishes to offer our sincerest and heartfelt condolences.

In Ontario, the Family Responsibility Office (FRO) is most effective at collecting from an employed person by garnishing his wages. When someone is self-employed (or employed through another family-owned business), however, it becomes more difficult. And some former spouses decide they just won’t pay.

My wife and I were in Bermuda a few years ago, making a presentation for the Bermuda CA Institute. We chatted with a gentleman on a ferry ride and discovered he owed a small fortune to his ex-wife and had decided to stop working, use what funds he could scrape together, buy a sailboat, and travel. He had spent the previous four years on a sailboat spending the rest of his money, with no fixed address and no income. Good luck collecting from him!

Recent media stories provided some highlights from the Auditor General of Ontario’s recent report, which included criticism of FRO for not having adequate systems in place to take action when a parent fails to make support payments. Mr. McCarter, the Auditor-General, concluded that not much had changed since his last review in 2003. This is unfortunate, as many former spouses, usually women, do not have the resources to mount a legal challenge to collect on outstanding amounts.

I got a call a few weeks ago from a client who first retained us several years ago. She is a tenacious person who is willing to invest in the process required to obtain, if possible, what she believes is rightfully owed to her. It seems that the ex-husband is in default of child-support payments and there is an outstanding judgment that she is having difficulty collecting.

Cases like these particularly inspire us. A judge ordered the payment of support and now it’s a matter of determining whether the former spouse can pay. She especially needs the money to take care of their children, an essential right. No one likes to see children suffer as a result of one or more spouses acting out of anger, vindictiveness, selfishness, greed or a combination of these emotions.

Once a judgment is ordered, someone who wants to avoid making payments has a lot of ways to skirt the law. So now we test our ability to locate assets and income – the search is on!

The story in this case was in today’s Globe and Mail. It told of 92-year-old Craig Morrison’s battle with building inspectors over deficiencies in a house he built for himself and his ailing wife. The house is located near St. Martins, New Brunswick from lumber he and his family cut and milled. He began building the house when he was 88.

Over the next several years building inspectors took him to court six times for alleged deficiencies. These included not using “stamped” (or inspected and graded) lumber. According to the Globe, “a professional home builder, Raymond Debly, volunteered to do an independent inspection. He determined that the house exceeded the requirements of the National Building Code. It was ‘built like a fort.’”

Nonetheless, the building inspectors wanted the Morrisons removed from the house and the house bulldozed. They wanted Craig Morrison found guilty of contempt of court, a finding that would have likely meant a jail term and would have forced his wife into a nursing home. Earlier this month a judge refused, and ruled that Morrison can continue to live in the house for the rest of his life.

My family has a summer home in St. Martins and we know John Morrison, Craig’s son. John runs a local excavation business that operates several gravel pits, runs a small mill, and is developing a subdivision on property overlooking West Quaco.

John tells us that his father could have done a better job of dealing with the building inspectors – that the story isn’t all one-sided. He believes that less confrontation, especially early in the building process, could have resolved many of the issues the inspectors found with the construction. However, he also is adamant that the unstamped lumber used in the house, the method of construction and installation of windows are practices that predate the building code and should be provided for in the code.

It made me think of many of our litigation engagements. They often have similar themes – a dispute that escalated beyond what either party anticipated, and that both parties don’t want to lose.

In this case, one side’s issue became the integrity of the building code and the inspection process, as opposed to finding a way to accommodate an old man’s desire to build a home for he and his wife’s final years. For the other, the issue became one of freedom and the right to be self-sufficient – the right to build a house in the way houses had always been built in rural New Brunswick.

It’s hard to put a dispute back into the box once the sides of the box become so hardened that they can’t fold or bend enough to accommodate the contents.

I plan to use the Morrison story in the future as an allegory for client’s who find themselves embroiled in a head-butting conflict. I’ll share it with legal counsel and mediators and anyone else who tries to help entrenched parties find a common ground before they head to court.

There’ s not always a middle ground in disputes but there very often is. And one thing that anyone involved in heated conflicts knows is that endless disputes can cost endless amounts of money. I’d rather see a fair settlement than have legal or accounting bills run up unnecessarily. Maybe that’s not good business on my part but it’s a good way to live. I think Craig Morrison would agree with me on that.

Our office has been involved in a major litigation since early spring. The final deadline (one that cannot be missed under any circumstances) is fast approaching. Consequently, some members on the file have been working until two and sometimes three in the morning.

That’s not unusual for forensic accountants, although as the years go by I don’t recover from a string of late nights as quickly as I used to.

Those of you who run long-distances know there are several points during a race when your body is screaming for you to give up or to slacken your pace. I think most dedicated runners don’t succumb to that temptation, unless a physical injury makes continuing impossible.

Likewise in a demanding file, the type that involves voluminous documentation, and where even the smallest error could prove disastrous. It takes more than skill and experience to take a large file to completion. It almost always requires those on the team, at all levels, to exert great physical and mental energy. It would be easy to give up during those tough early morning hours, and pack it in for the night.

But you can’t. Often it’s a colleague who pulls you through, by setting a don’t-quit attitude; other times you play that role.

At the end of the marathon my wife, Holly, and I put on a brunch for a group of runners from Kenya as well as representatives from the  Kenyan High Commissioner’s office. We are part of a charity, the Community Education Services (Canada), which supports high school students in a western province in Kenya.

We had received 10 RSVPs but were told quite a few more might show up. About 40 came over, including Kenneth Mungara, the men’s marathon winner, who set a new course record of 2:07:58, and Sharon Cherop, the women’s winner at 2:22:43. She won the race with a last-minute sprint to the finish line, beating an Ethiopian runner by one or two seconds.

Having them at our home was inspiring, as they are world-class athletes. Being prepared for 40 when 10 said they were coming was a matter of planning for more than one scenario. That also made me think of the file we’re concluding.

You have to anticipate every possible occurrence when seeing a case to completion. A team leader (as well as everyone on the file) has to look ahead to what is likely to happen, what might happen, what could go wrong and what can be done, in advance, to deal with whatever arises.

Our brunch was a great success. I was flying high because my time was almost the same as Kenneth’s. With one small difference: he ran twice the distance.

A marriage, needless to say, is a time to celebrate the present and look ahead to the future with great expectations. In drafting my toast to the bride, however, I was struck by the similarities in what is said at a wedding and at a funeral. That may seem a strange connection but it was triggered by another significant occurrence this week – the funeral of a friend.

I didn’t know Mark Hendrikx well. He was a fellow CA who I  met when we worked on a file together. We became friends although we didn’t spend a lot of time together.

He died of cancer, leaving behind his wife and five children. He was only 48.

The funeral, which took place in Newcastle (near Bowmanville, ON), was packed. Someone told the story of how Mark always saying he doubted there would be more than six people at his funeral. How wrong he was.

Why would he say that? I think because he wasn’t a flashy guy. He wasn’t a star, if that’s the right word to use.

But he was a kind and considerate person, someone who gladly did tax returns for seniors for free.

At his funeral it was his character people spoke about the most.  His friends and family knew he was a good man, and they loved him for who he was.

As I thought about what I wanted to say about Ainslie, I too was drawn to think about her character. She’s a talented artist, among other accomplishments that I’m proud of, but what I care most about is who she is as a person.

My memory was drawn back to a trip we took together when she was in grade eight or nine. We flew to Atlanta one long weekend and from there drove to St. Simon’s Island, a beautiful spot in southeastern Georgia.

Our purpose was not just to spend some father-daughter time together. It was also to develop personal mission statements, and the action plans we’d need to accomplish what we wanted to work on in our lives.

In general, I’d say we wanted to live more intentionally, which to us meant how could we transform whatever goals we had from just words to specific actions.

How does intentionality work? Let’s take a common example. How often do we say to an old friend, “We should have lunch some time.” To which the person answers, “Absolutely, we really should.” And then we both walk away.

If you actually want to have lunch, you have to take our your calendars and search for a time that works and make a date. Otherwise that lunch will never happen.

At the time of my trip with Ainslie there were some personal issues with people in our forensic practice and I realized I was letting them distract me from my home life. I needed to set aside more time for my wife and three children. I knew for some time that I had to change and find a healthier balance between my work and my personal life. Doing so intentionally, however, was not proving easy.

I think that weekend helped me and I sense it helped shape Ainslie. There’s no doubt in my mind that she is better at the intentional-living challenge than I am. She has a level of stick-to-it-ness that is truly inspiring.

So at her wedding I will talk about her character, and that of her husband. And I will wish them well in their life together from the depths of my heart.

I will also likely take a moment to think again about Mark, and that packed church earlier this week.

He was imperfect, like all of us. But there was a lot about him to admire. One thing I sensed was that led an intentional life. If someone asked me to describe him in one phrase I’d say he was someone who stuck-to-it once he committed to a project. He took action. Like Ainslie.

It’s strange how Ainslie and Mark, in their own way, are so related. And it’s strange that this week I’m celebrating two lives. One that’s still young and vibrant, the other over too soon.

Work is important, but at a wedding or a funeral it’s not work we talk about. It’s love and character we tend to mention. And rightly so. This is what life is really about, I believe.